Dawn P. Wooley PhD

Dawn Wooley, Ph.D., a virologist, and professor of neuroscience, cell biology, and physiology at Wright State University, has extensive experience studying viruses. It’s one reason that her virology course this spring has become so popular with students. She provides informative, up-to-date lectures on the changing dynamics of the coronavirus as part of the course. Wooley is tracking the spread of COVID-19 in the class. Her efforts are similar to others she has led during her career as a prolific virologist documenting the movements of past sicknesses, such as SARS in Asia and MERS in Saudi Arabia.

Wooley notes that there are many similarities between the recent pandemic and the 1918 influenza pandemic. It had begun with a zoonotic transmission from an avian species to humans. “When they cross-species, they are initially very aggressive,” she said. Wooley has had to weed out misinformation so that she can present the most relevant findings to her students, who are largely undergraduates. In all, the class has about 60 students. She looks for reputable sources, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and the World Health Organization. Wooley is careful to choose articles that have been validated by others in the scientific community. That’s the scientific method at work.